Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself eBook

About a half hour before night they were commanded
to stop work, take a bite to eat, and then be locked
up in a small cell until the next morning after sunrise.
The prisoners were locked in, two together. My
bed was a cold stone floor with but little bedding!
My visitors were bed-bugs and musquitoes.

CHAPTER VIII.

Character of my prison companions.—­Jail
breaking contemplated.—­Defeat of our plan.—­My
wife and child removed.—­Disgraceful proposal
to her, and cruel punishment.—­Our departure
in a coffle for New Orleans.—­Events of our
journey.

Most of the inmates of this prison I have described,
were white men who had been sentenced there by the
law, for depredations committed by them. There
was in that prison, gamblers, drunkards, thieves, robbers,
adulterers, and even murderers. There were also
in the female department, harlots, pick-pockets, and
adulteresses. In such company, and under such
influences, where there was constant swearing, lying,
cheating, and stealing, it was almost impossible for
a virtuous person to avoid pollution, or to maintain
their virtue. No place or places in this country
can be better calculated to inculcate vice of every
kind than a Southern work house or house of correction.

After a profligate, thief, or a robber, has learned
all that they can out of the prison, they might go
in one of those prisons and learn something more—­they
might properly be called robber colleges; and if slaveholders
understood this they would never let their slaves enter
them. No man would give much for a slave who had
been kept long in one of these prisons.

I have often heard them telling each other how they
robbed houses, and persons on the high way, by knocking
them down, and would rob them, pick their pockets,
and leave them half dead. Others would tell of
stealing horses, cattle, sheep, and slaves; and when
they would be sometimes apprehended, by the aid of
their friends, they would break jail. But they
could most generally find enough to swear them clear
of any kind of villany. They seemed to take great
delight in telling of their exploits in robbery.
There was a regular combination of them who had determined
to resist law, wherever they went, to carry out their
purposes.

In conversing with myself, they learned that I was
notorious for running away, and professed sympathy
for me. They thought that I might yet get to
Canada, and be free, and suggested a plan by which
I might accomplish it; and one way was, to learn to
read and write, so that I might write myself a pass
ticket, to go just where I pleased, when I was taken
out of the prison; and they taught me secretly all
they could while in the prison.

But there was another plan which they suggested to
me to get away from slavery; that was to break out
of the prison and leave my family. I consented
to engage in this plot, but not to leave my family.